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alias_sqbrI just found out about freesewing.org and made myself some comfy trousers!
They offer a bunch of customisable free sewing designs, including instructions. Once you make an account and enter in you measurements, you can download any of their designs altered to fit your shape.
Which is hugely helpful for me, because I have unusual proportions that don't fit standard sewing patterns, and am not up to altering them myself.
I'll put the rest of the details under the cut but before that, if anyone in Perth has recs for good cheapish fabric places that deliver I'd love to hear about them!
I made Paco Pants in jersey fabric, since once you take off the pockets and ankle cuffs they are very simple, basically fitted pajama pants. I didn't mess with any of the many other settings, and the pattern ended up being tighter and more low waisted than suits my preferences, but still proportional to my body. It wasn't too hard to add 1cm to all the seams and increase the waistband height to make the pants fit roughly the way I want, and I'm going to ask on the discord how best to tweak the settings to make a new pattern more suited to my preferences. But even with a bunch of errors (somehow the legs are different lengths, which is definitely on me) and fudges they don't look too bad and are pretty comfy. I'll try and remember to get Cam to take a photo at some point, they have one black leg and one burgundy since those are the jersey fabrics I had to hand and I think it looks pretty cool.
The instructions were fairly clear but would probably be too concise for a total beginner, and since they describe the standard pants with pockets and elastic cuffs at the ankles I had to do a little extrapolating. But this pattern is rated 3/5 for difficulty, the simpler patterns may have more detail.
They don't divide anything by gender, just by whether the design assumes breasts or a flat chest, which is nice.
Putting in the measurements took a while, and it was a bit confronting every time the little dial indicated I was bigger or smaller than it expected. Like, my legs and arms are XS while my butt is well above 4XL. But sometimes it was like "this is more than double what we'd expect" and I realised I'd put in the wrong number, so I get the utility. And now the numbers are in they shouldn't change significantly any time soon.
I got all excited at the idea of making a coat but (a) Even these simple pants were pushing my limits and (b) turns out none of the structured coat patterns have full instructions, boo. But there's some simpler hoodies with full instructions, and I might make one of them in a fun fabric. I am so sick of not having fitting clothes in styles and fabrics I like! Like even PLAIN BLACK COTTON PAJAMA PANTS are unavailable in my size. And now I can make my own, hooray! It will be effort and cost but right now it feels worth it.
I had to force myself to break up sewing the pants over two days so I didn't tire myself out and then horribly screw up. While I was frustratedly resting yesterday I distracted myself by poking around local sewing shops for fun fabrics. Here's the ones I found!
Paco pants or maybe Charlie Chinos/Cornelius cycling breeches :
Dark Purple Vine Flutter Cotton Print
Black & White Damask Cotton Print
Printed Knits Design-229 (grey stripes)
Printed Knits Design-227 (navy stripes)
combed cotton jersey
Cotton Corduroy
red and black pinstripe
flanelette, with stars?
Just plain cotton!
Yuri hoodie or Huey hoodie:
Micro Velvet, Wine colour except I vaguely recall hearing that velvet is hard to sew ;_;
Coral Fleece, black
Grasshopper polar fleece
Burgundy Tracksuiting
Chinese Brocade
idk but I like this kind of fabric:
Stretch Cotton Velveteen, Wine
Galaxy Collection #05 White Multi Colour Planets & Stars on Black Cotton Prints
Galaxy Collection #01 White Sketch Planets & UFO on Black Cotton Prints
Maurice Style Collection #13 Multi Colour Floral Vines on Navy Cotton Prints
Maurice Style Collection #07 Sky Blue Floral Vines on Dark Blue Cotton Prints
Maurice Style Collection #15 Cream Big Leaves Vines on Dark Red Cotton Prints
Probably not but fun to imagine:
Pretty but expensive two tone velvet
Shimmer in Black Velvet Burnout I suspect this is very hard to sew with.
Death Star Buttons
More fabric
Possibly useful pants tutorials
Adjusting sleeves
They offer a bunch of customisable free sewing designs, including instructions. Once you make an account and enter in you measurements, you can download any of their designs altered to fit your shape.
Which is hugely helpful for me, because I have unusual proportions that don't fit standard sewing patterns, and am not up to altering them myself.
I'll put the rest of the details under the cut but before that, if anyone in Perth has recs for good cheapish fabric places that deliver I'd love to hear about them!
I made Paco Pants in jersey fabric, since once you take off the pockets and ankle cuffs they are very simple, basically fitted pajama pants. I didn't mess with any of the many other settings, and the pattern ended up being tighter and more low waisted than suits my preferences, but still proportional to my body. It wasn't too hard to add 1cm to all the seams and increase the waistband height to make the pants fit roughly the way I want, and I'm going to ask on the discord how best to tweak the settings to make a new pattern more suited to my preferences. But even with a bunch of errors (somehow the legs are different lengths, which is definitely on me) and fudges they don't look too bad and are pretty comfy. I'll try and remember to get Cam to take a photo at some point, they have one black leg and one burgundy since those are the jersey fabrics I had to hand and I think it looks pretty cool.
The instructions were fairly clear but would probably be too concise for a total beginner, and since they describe the standard pants with pockets and elastic cuffs at the ankles I had to do a little extrapolating. But this pattern is rated 3/5 for difficulty, the simpler patterns may have more detail.
They don't divide anything by gender, just by whether the design assumes breasts or a flat chest, which is nice.
Putting in the measurements took a while, and it was a bit confronting every time the little dial indicated I was bigger or smaller than it expected. Like, my legs and arms are XS while my butt is well above 4XL. But sometimes it was like "this is more than double what we'd expect" and I realised I'd put in the wrong number, so I get the utility. And now the numbers are in they shouldn't change significantly any time soon.
I got all excited at the idea of making a coat but (a) Even these simple pants were pushing my limits and (b) turns out none of the structured coat patterns have full instructions, boo. But there's some simpler hoodies with full instructions, and I might make one of them in a fun fabric. I am so sick of not having fitting clothes in styles and fabrics I like! Like even PLAIN BLACK COTTON PAJAMA PANTS are unavailable in my size. And now I can make my own, hooray! It will be effort and cost but right now it feels worth it.
I had to force myself to break up sewing the pants over two days so I didn't tire myself out and then horribly screw up. While I was frustratedly resting yesterday I distracted myself by poking around local sewing shops for fun fabrics. Here's the ones I found!
Paco pants or maybe Charlie Chinos/Cornelius cycling breeches :
Dark Purple Vine Flutter Cotton Print
Black & White Damask Cotton Print
Printed Knits Design-229 (grey stripes)
Printed Knits Design-227 (navy stripes)
combed cotton jersey
Cotton Corduroy
red and black pinstripe
flanelette, with stars?
Just plain cotton!
Yuri hoodie or Huey hoodie:
Micro Velvet, Wine colour except I vaguely recall hearing that velvet is hard to sew ;_;
Coral Fleece, black
Grasshopper polar fleece
Burgundy Tracksuiting
Chinese Brocade
idk but I like this kind of fabric:
Stretch Cotton Velveteen, Wine
Galaxy Collection #05 White Multi Colour Planets & Stars on Black Cotton Prints
Galaxy Collection #01 White Sketch Planets & UFO on Black Cotton Prints
Maurice Style Collection #13 Multi Colour Floral Vines on Navy Cotton Prints
Maurice Style Collection #07 Sky Blue Floral Vines on Dark Blue Cotton Prints
Maurice Style Collection #15 Cream Big Leaves Vines on Dark Red Cotton Prints
Probably not but fun to imagine:
Pretty but expensive two tone velvet
Shimmer in Black Velvet Burnout I suspect this is very hard to sew with.
Death Star Buttons
More fabric
Possibly useful pants tutorials
Adjusting sleeves
no subject
Date: 2022-03-21 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-24 07:10 am (UTC)I hope you find something useful!
no subject
Date: 2022-03-26 07:26 am (UTC)for fabric ordering, I actually use spotlight. Alternatively, https://homecrafttextiles.com.au might suit? I've bought fabric from them before, but haven't tried online ordering. Their Vic Park shop was an accessibility nightmare last time I went there.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 01:44 pm (UTC)I just bought some fabric from Home Craft online and it went pretty well! They seem cheaper than Spotlight overall.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-02 02:33 pm (UTC)Useful to know. I have been resisting the lure of fabric, except for collecting quilting cotton for some future projects, so have been attempting to not look at fabric sites!
no subject
Date: 2022-04-02 03:33 pm (UTC)Haha, sorry, feel free to forget I said anything :)
no subject
Date: 2022-04-03 03:35 am (UTC)Given I have the attention span of an ... oooh shiny ... I suspect it isn't going to be an issue. And I've been doing so little sewing.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-26 07:31 am (UTC)Oh, and on sewing velvet -- more pins. And orthogonal to the seam, so that you can sew over them (you may already do this. but sewing classes when I was at school taught people to pin following the seam line, so you have to pull the pins out when you get to them, and with velvet this pulls things crooked)
no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 01:44 pm (UTC)Thank you, that's useful!